ualaunal

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Attestation:	GR·1 (]ualaunal/]raṇeni) (1)
Language:	Celtic
Word Type:	proper noun
Grammatical Categories:	indeterminable
Stem Class:	?
Morphemic Analysis:	u̯allau̯n-al (?)
Phonemic Analysis:	/uallau̯nal/
Meaning:	unknown

Commentary

Possibly incomplete in the beginning, see the inscription page.

The grammatical form of the word is unclear. The ending -al has been associated with the Lepontic patronymic suffix -al-, in which case a) the ending is dropped for uncertain reasons (Danielsson 1909: 29–31; Rhŷs 1913: 31 f., no. 2; Jacobsohn 1927: 31, no. 207; Whatmough PID 255), b) the suffix is not yet thematised (Terracini 1927: 146; Thurneysen 1933: 6; Lejeune 1971: 52; Pisani 1964: 282 f., no. 119 G), or c) the language of the inscription is not Celtic, but Tyrsenian (Tibiletti Bruno 1978: 152; 1975b: 50; 1981: 174, no. 19). See -al- on the derivation of the suffix from the Tyrsenian genitive ending -al, and the inscription page on the problematic word order: ualaunal precedes the other name in the inscription, and is therefore unlikely to be a patronym. The alternative is that ualaunal is an abbreviated individual name formed with the North Italic onomastic suffix -alo/a- (Untermann 1959: 131–134, 152, Untermann 1961b: 123; cf. kaialoiso), though again the absence of an ending – nominative -os or genitive -ī – remains unexplained. Prosdocimi 1991: 164–166 suggests that ualaunal is complete, namely an i-stem (m or f) derived with the suffix -al- 2 ualaunalis > ualaunals > ualaunal, comparing sunalei and Venetic *Pa 25 tivalei (both datives) for names in -alis. See also Motta 2000: 206, Eska & Wallace 2001: 230 f. with n. 8. Markey & Mees 2003: 142 f. suggest to interpret -al as a formant of a cognomen or functional title.

The base is compared with Celtic ue/allauno- 'ruler' by Kretschmer 1905: 106; cf. ualauna, ualaun[ (Delamarre 2007: 188) and see the morpheme page for details. See also De Bernardo Stempel 1994: 290, Villar & Prósper 2005: 317, 327.

Corinna Salomon

Bibliography

Danielsson 1909	Olof August Danielsson, Zu den venetischen und lepontischen Inschriften [= Skrifter utgivna av Kungliga Humanistiska Vetenskaps-Samfundet i Uppsala 13.1], Uppsala – Leipzig: 1909.
De Bernardo Stempel 1994	Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel, "Das indogermanische m(V)no-Verbaladjektiv im Keltischen", in: Roland Bielmeier, Reinhard Stempel (eds), Indogermanica et Caucasica. Festschrift für Karl Horst Schmidt zum 65. Geburtstag [= Untersuchungen zur indogermanischen Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft 6], Berlin – New York: De Gruyter 1994, 281–305.
Delamarre 2007	Xavier Delamarre, Noms de personnes celtiques dans l'épigraphie classique. Nomina Celtica Antiqua Selecta Inscriptionum, Paris: Errance 2007.
Eska & Wallace 2001	Joseph F. Eska, Rex E. Wallace, "A syncretism in fieri in early Celtic", Indogermanische Forschungen 106 (2001), 229–240.